u/2hawttakeslover

I really need advice because I don’t know if I’m being dramatic or if my feelings are actually valid.

Growing up, my mom has always provided for me financially, but emotionally I’ve never felt close to her. She worked night shifts most of my life and was usually angry, stressed, or emotionally unavailable. I grew up without a father figure, and when she started dating our neighbor when I was around 12, it was hard for me to adjust because I already struggled emotionally and wasn’t close to her in the first place.

Over the years, her boyfriend and I have had issues. I know I wasn’t always easy during my early teen years because I was very moody and emotionally overwhelmed, but I also feel like no one really tried to understand why I was acting that way. Even now I still struggle with stress because I help take care of my younger sister a lot, and it feels like I’m expected to handle responsibilities while also never showing frustration.

Lately, I’ve been wanting more independence. I begged for a nose piercing for weeks before my mom finally agreed, mainly because her boyfriend agreed too. But the condition was that I had to “fix my attitude.” That upset me because everything always feels conditional in my house. If they allow me to do something, it feels like they expect even more control over me afterward.

Today I asked my mom if I could get my license at 17 and a half, and she got upset saying I’m asking for too much lately. She brought up the piercing, wanting to cut my hair, and driving like these were unreasonable things to want. She also said I was taking advantage of the fact that she’s trying to communicate with me more right now.

What frustrates me is that they say they’d rather teach me how to drive than let me get a piercing, but they rarely make time to actually teach me. I feel stuck because I’m almost 18, I already pay for a lot of my own things, and I’m trying to become more independent, but every step toward independence becomes an argument.

I understand my mom grew up differently in Central America and probably sees things differently culturally, but I feel like she doesn’t understand how trapped and controlled I feel sometimes. I ended up crying because I honestly feel scared that I’ll never be able to grow into the person I want to become if everything keeps feeling this restrictive.

How do I deal with this situation without constantly fighting with my mom? And how do I stop feeling guilty for wanting independence?

Hi, I’m currently running for class president at my school, and this is something I’ve wanted to do for a really long time. Last year I didn’t even submit an application for ASB, so this year I made sure to apply and actually put myself out there.

A lot of my mutuals are also running, and honestly I can feel some tension and animosity because of it. One of the people I’m running against has already been class president for the past two school years. We aren’t close, but we have mutual friends. We all also picked our own vice presidents to run with.

The week before elections, his VP told me to my face TWICE within like 5 minutes that they were going to win. It honestly discouraged me because of how confident and cocky it came across, but I still decided to keep running because I didn’t want to back down.

For campaigns, we had to film a video. I filmed like 3 different versions just to have options. I ended up posting some clips I wasn’t going to use plus a snippet of my main video edit on social media. My campaign theme is Mean Girls themed.

In one of the clips, I covered one of their campaign posters for a second. I genuinely was not thinking when I did it. There was no malicious intent behind it at all.

The next day I heard that his VP was upset, so after first period I went looking for her to apologize and clear things up face to face. We talked everything out, she even hugged me after, and then we acted normal during our second period together. She told me I should also talk to the presidential candidate, and I agreed because I wanted to apologize to both of them.

I texted him apologizing, but his response kind of caught me off guard. Then today I heard that apparently I came off as “aggressive” when I talked to them, which honestly confused me because I genuinely wasn’t trying to be aggressive at all, and neither I nor my friends thought I sounded that way. I was just trying to clear up the misunderstanding in person instead of avoiding it.

Now I’m overthinking the whole situation and wondering if maybe I handled it badly without realizing it.

AITA?